INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION CALLS ON GSA TO “MAKE MAS GREAT AGAIN”. WILL THEY?

The Multiple Award Schedule program can be a dynamic market place where educated buyers make best value determinations when they actually buy something without having GSA consistently inflict new pricing and reporting requirements on Schedule contractors.  This is the central tenet of a communication sent last week by the Coalition for Government Procurement to leaders in the new administration.  Regardless of whether your blogger used to run said organization, the Coalition is absolutely right.  The Schedules program can and should make use of the same technological tools that enable commercial buyers to make smart buying decisions, whether they’re buying commodities or complex services.  The catches, though, are that “one size does not fit all” when creating systems for diverse contract solutions and that commercial entities that provide these tools to users do not simultaneously create hurdles over which suppliers must jump in order to participate.  GSA leaders must stop looking at the Multiple Award Schedules program as a “pen and pencil” provider and creating “solutions” based on that assumption.  A dynamic, diverse program needs matching improvements.  Yes, this work is harder, but if true improvement is what the agency is after, there is no way around it.